I had a dreamWhen I was youngA dream of sweet illusionA glimpse of hope and unityAnd visions of one sweet unionBut a cold wind blowsAnd a dark rain fallsAnd in my heart it showsLook what they've done to my dreeeeaaam...yeah!

One visionSo give me your handsGive me your heartsI'm readyThere's only one directionOne world one nationYeah one vision

No hate no fightJust exultationAll through the nightIt's a celebration Wowowowow yeah

There’s a war still raging, they say we fight to keep the peaceAll we want is peace, and we all want peaceYet they are still resisting, and they fight to keep their peaceAll they want is peace, don’t we all want peace

There are people praying, they say that God is on our sideAll we want is peace, and we all want peaceOthers too are praying, they say “Allah’s on our side”All they want is peace, don’t we all want peace

Brothers and sisters lend a hand, help create the promised landNever too late to take a stand, help our leaders understandThat all we want is peace, and we all want peaceAll they want is peace, don’t we all want peace

There are mothers crying, for their wounded and their deadAll we want is peace, and we all want peaceAnd the toll keeps rising, hasn’t there been enough blood shedAll they want is peace, and don’t we all want peace

(Chorus)

We all want to live, we all want to surviveWe all want our freedom, no one wants to dieWe all want to win, no one wants to loseWe can change the outcome, if we choose

Let’s try to fit each piece of the puzzle, give each their piece of the pieShare the wealth, share the land, the lion and the lamb will lieTogether in peace, and we all want peaceAll they want is peace, don’t we all want peaceAll we want is peace, and we all want peaceAll they want is peace, don’t we all want peace

Corporate sponsors determine who gets elected or installed. Sponsors like the war industry, oil industry, pharmaceutical industry all profiting hand in hand at the expense of humanity and nature. Then we ask when are we going to have peace? When are we going to have fueless energy, anti and counter gravity, cars that run on water? We ask when are we going to have the cures? The answer is when the profit is taken out of war, disease, and the technologies are no longer suppressed by the oil industry.

Sensation Nation

Americans just can not get enough cerebral titillation. If there isn’t anything going on, you can be sure it will be mere moments before something rushes in to fill the vacuum. The 24 hour news cycle’s most important job is to make sure we never get a rest from human tragedy and despair. We are trained to need stimulation, occupation, and sedation. Filling every second of our lives with ‘stuff’ there is no time for us to be at rest and reflect upon who we are inside. The effort to avoid fear on the outside exacerbates the fear we feel on the inside and fans the infernos of humanity’s long time nemesis, hatred of each other.

Our lexicon is augmented by the War Machine and terms like ‘Shock and Awe’ and ‘Surge’ are now threaded through every day conversations. Somehow we become disconnected from the original death and carnage sewed by these extreme uses of force and are amazed when we reap the results of these poor choices. America acts like a ‘cool’ kid from high school who refuses to relent on pressing this false self image. It would rather die than change course, it is so identified with the path that it is on. To grow or evolve is mistaken as defeat because wisdom is not used as the measure of success, but rather unfortunately the perpetuation of limited ideology is the standard.

One of the main reasons Americans can not see beyond the end of their noses is their obsession with the religion of Christianity. So many of them absolutely believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven and that if you don’t follow him, they are doing you a favor by trying to cram it down your throat. The veneer of sophistication leads them to think they are somehow different from the ‘enemy’ who is doing exactly the same thing under another disguise. Far be it for most Christians to crack a history book, they whistle ‘Dixie’ when you bring up such inconvenient points as the gospels being written well after the fact, Jesus being voted as God in a board meeting, and that nobody would even be a Christian if it wasn’t for the murderous emperor Constantine imposing Christianity upon a crumbling Roman Empire.

Constantly reinforcing each other’s illusions, they create an alternate reality. Boxing themselves into smaller and smaller often contradiction laden spaces, they can not rectify the discrepancy so they start eating pills by the handful. Money to the church, money to the government, money to the pharmacy, and the list goes on… It is a bureaucracy of confusion that each person has to try to sort out just to get through the day. Work, work, work for things that are not necessary and only end up harming mental and eventually physical health. I guess this helps when they shake you down once again at the hospitals (if they don’t just turn you away and leave you to die because you could not afford insurance).

Come back to peace my friends. As they say in Zen, sitting silently doing nothing, the grass grows by itself. The whole disaster is superfluous and unnecessary to the blessing of life. When we see wars rage, it is not something to be for or against. It is something to understand and heal. All sides are in a bad way and hurting. One must not gain at the cost of another. It does not need to work that way. Together we can create systems that benefit everybody and the synergy of Love will be the joy of the Earth.

DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA
The relationship between master and squire is an important one. We are quick to read Don Quixote and Sancho as representing illusion and reality respectively. Perhaps this is too quick a judgment. Just as Don Quixote is dubbed a lunatic for privileging his imagination over reality, Sancho is equally as foolish. Though Sancho is able to recognize windmills for what they are, he continues to follow his master on his journey in hopes that he will receive wealth and power as reward. Though Sancho may be able to "see" the real world and Don Quixote an "idealized" world, we learn that neither character is truly sane. Lunacy is dependent upon how others (especially the readers) perceive an individual and the question of perception becomes an important one throughout the novel. If Don Quixote is "mad" for believing in the tales of chivalry, does that make Sancho, who sees reality, "more mad" for following Don Quixote?

At the same time, there are moments where the imaginative gentleman and the practical peasant switch roles. We see in Don Quixote the quixotification of Sancho Panza and the sanchification of Don Quixote. We watch as Sancho learns to be a little more like his master and ignore facts and believe in illusion, and we also watch Don Quixote recognize the realities that undermine his fantastic imagination. Is it best to be a dreamer like Don Quixote, or is it best to be practically-minded like Sancho? Perhaps it is a happy medium that must be found between the two. As you read Don Quixote, look for moments where knight and squire seem to trade places as Don Quixote learns to place his feet in the ground and Sancho learns the power of imagination. Where do we find truth when the imaginative Don Quixote must search within the world of reality for answers? And where do we find truth when Sancho substitutes fantasy for reality?